Searching For Answers

 

        “I just don’t know where I belong,” a friend said to me.  “When I’m out west, that feels like where I belong.  When I’m in the south, that feels right too.  But truth be told, I feel like I belong right where I live sometimes, too.”

Finding answers can be very frustrating.  I remember a movie we watched not long ago and the young woman looked at her mom and said something about her life getting so complicated that she didn’t know what to do.  The mom looked at her daughter and said, “You’d like to be able to pray one of those simple prayers and get an answer.”  It was actually more of a question than a statement.

The young woman said, simply, “Yeah.”

In a very matter-of-fact way, the mom said, “It still is that simple.  Ask, wait, and search your heart for what God is telling you.”

I know I’ve struggled in times of desiring discernment.  I had questions and I wasn’t even sure I could name them.  But I wanted answers.  I suppose at some level, I still do.  My own life feels as complicated as the young woman in the movie.  It seems each day I still wait for answers.  In my very small mind, so many things are a jumbled mess!  But I know God’s mind is so much greater than mine. (There is really no comparison!)  But I know he has the answers and I need to wait.  God, in his perfect time and in his perfect will, will indeed answer my questions and will reveal to me what he wants me to know.

I think he may have given me a clue this week.  It was such a simple statement, but when I heard it, I heard myself saying, “Okay Lord. If that’s what you want then I’m good.  It isn’t what I’d planned, but it’ll work!”

I learned in the service this week that Jesus prays for us.  I think I knew that—He is our intercessor, after all, but it was never more clearer than it was in the service.  Isn’t it funny how God uses something we think we know and understand, to teach us something just a little bit different than what we expected!

We’ll see what the future holds and if I heard God right.  I know he’s not going to leave me hanging.  In the days, weeks or months to come there will be further evidence that will guide me into His truth and onto his paths.  The Bible promises this if we believe it.  What’s really interesting about that is, that is a scripture I read just yesterday!  I don’t believe in ‘coincidences.’  I believe in ‘God incidences!’  

God does not want me to flounder and not know his plans for me.  But sometimes having too much information is as bad as not having enough.  Have you ever been there?  —-You happen to know too much information about a person you’ve just met and you find yourself making a judgement call without getting verification of truth. Because of your presumption of the information learned, you make a judgement call that is all wrong.  Of course you don’t discover that until it’s too late and it just ruins everything!

By waiting on God to give me the right information at the right time, I can know he will show me through little ways or even a big way that will leave no further clarification, that his way is exactly what I’m supposed to know and will enable me to move forward.

Photo credit: free searching for something pictures

Harnessing Our Thoughts

       My friend tells the story of a conversation which very nearly could have been called an argument she had with one of her children.  Words were spoken and things said in the moment that could not be retracted and she agonized over the dispute later in the day.  She kept asking herself, ‘Why did I say that?’ or ‘I should have said this,’ and on and on.

I know how that feels, even though arguing is not something I’m very good at! There have been those times when disagreements created tense moments in my life.  I suspect we all have them.  There are times when I remember the occasional, what I considered "verbal assault’; and consider how I could have better responded.  Like my friend, I fretted about what I said right or could have said, that I didn't.

We are human so errors in judgement, especially in the face of emotions can be made.  We feel guilty afterward and often reprimand ourselves with all kinds of negative thoughts.  These thoughts keep re-winding and playing over and over again in our minds until we have completely demolished any sense of decency we should feel about ourselves.

We are told in scripture to ‘capture our  thoughts and make them obedient to Christ.’  When we are beating ourselves up, we are not being obedient to God’s Word.  It’s so good to know that God knows and feels the pain I am feeling.  He came to be sacrifice for me.  

We just celebrated Easter and Christ’s Resurrection.  His blood covers all my sins.  He speaks to me and reminds me that I am far from perfect, but I am still His child.  He loves me, delights in me and wants only the best for me. So it’s up to me to capture those awful thoughts of failure and worthlessness and throw them out of mind right back at Satan who is trying to destroy me.

It’s hard to believe how much peace can come from calling on God.  He answers, when I allow, and can once again feel whole again.  When I ask for forgiveness for the berating I just gave myself and praise Him, whether in song or in prayer, I am filled with an awe that cannot be explained.   

Knowing that I have God’s support and encouragement in my day to day life, I know that even when I fail, he’s there to pick me up and get me back on the right track.

Harnessing our thoughts is much like harnessing our tongue!  It’s hard to do.  We are human and it’s easy to fall into the trap of ‘listening to bad things and then saying the bad things'--even if it's about ourselves.  When we say things aloud, our ears hear them and that in some way intensifies what we were thinking!

I encourage you this week to recognize when your thoughts are beating you up!  Then raise your eyes and heart to the Father and ask Him to exchange your negative self talk to something positive.  Turn the radio on to some Gospel music, read His Word and praise him.  I suspect those negative thoughts will be soon ‘undone’ by God’s almighty and loving power! 

Photo Credit:  free Praise Pictures

Glimpses Of God

 

      There are days when it looks like the sky could fall, as the gray clouds hover close, with moisture so thick it feels like it's already raining, although not a drop has actually fallen.  I like storms--not the kind that wreak havoc or destroy, but those kinds with rolling and rumbling thunder and lightening strikes which lights the sky.   

It's all so majestic and in an odd kind of way, to someone like me who understands little of weather, mysterious!  I just sit and revel in the beauty and sensation of witnessing something so powerful!  Isn't our God just like that?!    He hovers close, --like the rain that hasn't fallen, pours out his love, -- like that rain that finally comes, and demonstrates his power with a magnitude we can't even imagine,--- when he sees to our needs and performs the unexpected miracle, in addition to providing intense beauty we can find here on this planet Earth!

Easter is this next Sunday and like the nearness I felt when the storm was close, so is the nearness I feel from a Resurrected Christ.  When I think of the awesome power demonstrated when Jesus left the grave, it gives me goosebumps.

We don’t have any actual photos of Jesus when he walked the earth, and certainly we have no pictures of God, except what our minds can conjure given the information shared within His Word.  But don’t we still get glimpses of God?

Our imaginations can see the stone rolled away (even we haven’t visited Israel and see the actual tomb); we can picture the cross even though there are no visible evidences of it now; we can imagine how Christ will return one day walking down through the clouds to gather his children and so much more.

We also have evidences and glimpses of a powerful God as we look into the faces of a new born babe and our loved ones; behold the majesty of the mountains and the tranquility of the prairie; or enjoy the bounty from our gardens; or watch a natural waterfall flowing forcefully over a mountain ledge; breathtaking sunrises and sunsets; snow falling gently on a cold winter day; or the intense colors that abound in Spring while the birds sing in surround sound in their various voices.   This is such a short list of all the ways God gives a glimpse of who He is.

As we join with other Believers on Sunday I encourage you to stop, even if just for a moment and remember….. Remember what He did on the cross for the entire world and what that means—an opportunity to spend eternity with Him some day with all our sins forgiven when we believe.  But also while we wait, notice the magnitude of the immense ways he has given us as demonstrations of who he is.  

      We serve a living God.  A God who wants nothing more than a unique one on one relationship with all who will believe.  That's almost difficult for our minds to comprehend, especially when we consider our 'human-ness', who chooses friends carefully!  

    God loves us all and proved that by sacrificing himself on an old rugged cross --- his blood covering my sin.  What greater love is there than this?  Simply said: I am overwhelmed!  God is so Good!

Squirming To Go!

 

       My friend tells the story of the day she took her small son with her to visit a friend in a small town gift shop.  After chatting a few moments, the little guy began tugging on his momma’s hand ready to leave.  He didn’t want to wait any longer in the store and wasn’t the least bit interested in his mother’s conversation or the shopping she would do following her discussion with her friend.

Sometimes I feel like the 'little guy' in the store,—in the sense I feel like I'm ready to get on with whatever it is God wants me to do, even if I’m not quite sure just what that it; and I can’t move forward until I do.  So I am required to wait until he clarifies just what that is, and there are times when the anxiety it just crazy!   But even then, I know God is holding on to my hand, saying, "Wait, wait, we're not quite ready!"

I doubt I’m the only one who has felt this way.  I think many times we, as Believers, squirm to be free to go down the road/path we have chosen because it seems so fitting at a particular moment.  We plow forward with independence and confidence without first falling on our knees before God to make sure this is the direction we should take.  

We hear those gentle nudges when God is saying, ‘Not so fast; this isn’t what I had planned for you.’  But from our narrow mind’s eye, we’re certain we are right, and then find ourselves tumbling down a hill and asking, “Where did that come from?”

It’s when we face our independent spirit and turn to Him we can recognize that He knows our hearts, understands everything we want and need, and even knows our intentions and motives better than we do.  There is nothing we can hide from him.

We need his divine wisdom to give us guidance so that what we do will not only be right for us, but will honor him in the process.  We get impatient with waiting, however.  We get weary with confusion and sometimes wonder if an absolute answer will ever come. 

God will never let us down and will never lead us astray; but it’s vital to our growth as a Believer to listen to those nudges. And we need to listen to his small still voice so that peace that comes from knowing we’ve allowed him to reign in our heart, mind and soul, so the right direction will come with total and complete clarity.

This isn’t always easy.  We are human, and Satan can cloud our thoughts with small seeds of ‘you’ve got this, go!’  It’s hard to be patient and wait.  Depending on our circumstances, it can be agonizing.  

As we look to God the Father for answers, and ask for HIS patience to rule our hearts until the time, purpose, circumstances and any other elements that are necessary, are completely aligned with his, we will find we do have what it takes to wait.  The blessings will come, all in his perfect time.

Photo Credit: https://www.123rf.com/photo_26494087_stock-illustration-illustration-of-a-little-girl-pulling-her-mother-s-hand-while-pointing-at-something.html